I went to sleep to @letsgetfree13 shading Cyborg & I woke up to the same. This may have been one if the best follows I've made recently.
— Felonious Donk (@PhaxSimile) March 2, 2014
Well, I was with some friends a week or two ago watching Justice League: War, DC's latest bastardization of their New 52 material. I'm not going to into why I didn't particularly enjoy the movie or the source material it was based on. That's a whole other post. I mentioned how I didn't like Cyborg being placed on the Justice League roster for one simple reason.
Cyborg is the epitome of why DC's black characters (except Green Lantern John Stewart) just don't work.
Let's take a real look at Victor Stone. There's not much to set him apart from anyone else in the Justice League. Think about it. What exactly can he do that the League needs that any of the other members can't already do? Strength? Well, that's pretty notably what Superman and Wonder Woman are for. He has a laser cannon for an arm? Green Lantern's magic wishing ring can do that plus anything else he can imagine. He can hack into computer security systems? Let's face it. DC has made Batman so annoyingly omniscient, he can hack/break/punch/think his way into virtually ANYTHING on Earth. Flash, Aquaman and even Shazam have villains tailor made to combat them and offer a significant challenge to be overcome. Name a Cyborg villain. I'll wait.
The ONLY thing that actually makes Cyborg stand out is being black. Now, let's look at his actual character development. Thus far, in the New 52 continuity, the only defining personality trait anyone can nail down is "I'm so sad that I have a metal face." Granted, tragedy isn't a new plot device or anything. After all....Batman. But there are other layers to Batman. He's meticulous, calculating, disgustingly rich, gets laid on Earth more than Captain Kirk ever did in space. Despite being a well documented loner...he's kind of a surrogate father, too. Cyborg is just really, really sad about his metal face despite being having all kinds of cool superpowers. I'm not even going to go into the possible undertones that could be assumed about the fact that only thing DC seems to be able to do remotely well with black characters is tragedy.
(This was the same problem DC had with Hal Jordan in the Green Lantern movie. These are sad times. People are sick, people are broke and someone's trying to shoot up a school or shopping mall every other week. If you have a character with a magic wishing ring or super robot powers, nobody wants to read them whining about it for 26 pages.)
With all that in mind, I repeat: the ONLY thing that separates Cyborg from the rest of the Justice League is the fact that he's black. So, when they put him on the roster, it's blatantly DC coming across as stuffy old white guys trying to condescend to readers, showing them how "down" they are by putting putting a black person with no standout qualities other than blackness next to Superman. Remind you of anyone?
Yes, that's right. Cyborg is quite literally DC's "black friend."
The sad thing is they really do mean well. It seems like they're trying to do for Cyborg what Marvel did with Luke Cage in 2000 by upgrading his character from the superhero version of Chef in South Park to what has basically turned out to be Shaft with superpowers (if he were played by Ving Rhames ten years ago). The only problem with that is Marvel does shit like that well.
Before ever becoming an Avenger, we saw Cage evolve and shine in top notch books like Alias and Daredevil (it probably helped that Brian Michael Bendis has sort of a man crush on Luke Cage). I know Luke Cage. He's is the summation of guys like my best friend and my father, an old school man of stoic conscience with pretty old school methods to superheroing and isn't always entirely sure he's supposed to be a husband and father, but sucks it up and does it anyway.
For all the complaints about her being underused (even though she's at the forefront of at least two successful X-Men titles I can think of), Storm is a pretty fleshed out character herself. She's a woman who owns her mutant powers and has always sort carried herself like royalty even before marrying (and divorcing) the Black Panther. Her history is so extensive, we've seen her overcome claustrophobia. Whether you like her character or not, you know Storm. You can repeat this with Black Nick Fury, James Rhodes, even the Falcon at this point, really.
Now, name three personality traits, defining moments or quirks about Cyborg, Mister Terrific, Black Lightning, Bronze Tiger or Aqualad (who, in fairness, was AWESOME in Young Justice). Villains? Motivations? Memorable "Real Hero" moments? Go ahead. Try. I'll wait.
Putting black characters like this on a Justice League roster for black's sake isn't giving them the respect or recognition they deserve. Taking them seriously and actually writing them is. That's why I don't take Cyborg seriously. Then again, I could be wrong.
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